The Cathartic Voyage: Transforming Pain into Knowledge in the Image and Text of Leonora Carrington

While the theme of pain in the works of twentieth century visionary artist and writer Leonora Carrington is most frequently related to her harrowing account Down Below, in which she chronicles the trials she encountered through a four-month internment period in a psychiatric facility in Santander in 1940, the roots of this theme in Carrington’s work can be traced back to her early creative output prior to this event; the impact of which can in turn be found in the works she produced after 1940. It is in light of the connections between the works Carrington produced prior to, during and following her internment period that this thesis will investigate depictions of pain in Carrington’s work through an analysis of three of her literary works that align with these periods, namely, The Oval Lady, Down Below and The Stone Door, which will be analysed in tandem with a selection of Carrington’s visual works of the period. Specifically, through an in-depth critical analysis of the links between Carrington’s image and text, as well as the interplay between the biographical and figurative layers of her works, this thesis will investigate Carrington’s articulations of pain experiences in her works, as well as her ability to transform these experiences into symbolic sources of knowledge. By turning to the interplay between image and text; the biographical and the figurative, this thesis in turn aims to shed light on the extent to which combined visual and textual modes of representation function as fluid, malleable modes of representation that provide Carrington with the tools to both articulate pain experiences and transform them into illuminative sources of knowledge that have the capacity to transfigure reality. By integrating key biographical details into an analysis of Carrington’s image and text, this thesis aims to investigate the extent to which pain experiences in Carrington’s life found its way into her creative output, serving as catalysing forces that radically transformed her understanding of reality and perception that would ultimately shape her creative trajectory.